Only for a second. Then, of course of course, she had oodles of stuff. I mean mean, she thought, loose with relief, this is Dylan this is Dylan.

'Do you think I should take Molly to the doctor?'

Dylan didn't answer.

'If she doesn't knock off the hunger-strike soon,' Clodagh chattered, 'I'll really have to. She's getting no nourishment from all the chocolate and '

'What are you having to start?' Dylan interrupted, brusquely.

'Oh! Oh, I don't know.'

'The menu's spectacular,' Dylan said, a little too pointedly.

'Oh right.'

'Can't you forget about the kids just for a couple of hours?'

'Sorry. Am I driving you mad?'

'Round the bend,' he agreed, in exasperation.

She began to settle down. After all, she was in a lovely restaurant with her lovely husband. They were drinking gin-and-tonics and eating tomato bread. Delicious food and several bottles of wine would soon be on their way, and her children were safe at home with two people who weren't paedophiles or child-batterers. What could be nicer?

'Sorry,' she repeated, and this time really did study the menu. 'I see what you mean,' she acknowledged. 'Oh, they've mussels. And goat's cheese souffle. Bloody hell! What'll I have? What'll I have?'

'Starter or soup,' Dylan said thoughtfully, 'that is the question.'

'"Or?"' Clodagh challenged. 'What's this "or" word? I think what you mean is "and".'

With the desperation of one who rarely gets out, Clodagh over-ordered wildly, mad-keen to wring as much enjoyment as possible from this infrequent treat. Starters and sorbets and soups and side-orders. Main-courses and red wine and white wine and water.

'Sparkling or still?' The waiter asked, his hand hurting. Now he knew how Tolstoy felt, having to write War and Peace War and Peace.

Puzzled, Clodagh looked at him surely it was obvious? 'Both!'

'Very good.'

'Is there anything else we can order?' Clodagh shivered gleefully, when he'd gone.

'Not for the moment,' Dylan laughed, swept up in her enthusiasm. 'But wait till we've got this consignment out of the way.'

'Will we have dessert and and cheese?' cheese?'

''Course. Irish coffees?'

'And dessert wine. And petit fours.'

'French coffees?'

'Mais oui! I might even have a cigar.'

'That's my girl.'

By the time they were a couple of courses in, Clodagh was dreamy from food and drink, but still bothered by an inability to relax. Then she realized what the problem was.

'It's such a long time since I've had an uninterrupted dinner that I can't break the habit,' she said. 'I keep getting the urge to jump up and cut up other people's dinners for them... See your man over there?' she indicated a New-York-loft-boy type who was playing with his food 'I want to stick a bit of his filet mignon his filet mignon on a fork and say, "Open wide for the birdy." In fact, I think I will.' on a fork and say, "Open wide for the birdy." In fact, I think I will.'

Dylan was half-appalled and amused as Clodagh pretended to stand up. Then she stopped and twisted and turned anxiously.

'Why... ? Why am I sticking to the chair?' She put a hand down to investigate. 'I've a patch of black sticky stuff on my bum. Tar, maybe. Damn, on my lovely new dress. How did I manage that?' Tentatively she brought her fingertips to her nose, sniffed, then started to laugh. 'It's blackberry jam. Bet it was Molly, the little brat. She's a scream, isn't she?'

'She's brilliant.' Dylan wasn't entirely undreamy himself.

'Would you say they're all right?' Clodagh asked, suddenly anxious.

'Of course! And Ashling and Ted have the mobile number. They'll ring if anything goes wrong.'

'Like what? What could go wrong?'

'Nothing.'

'Give me your mobile and I'll make a quick call.'

Dylan's eyes pleaded with her. 'Can't you just leave it for one night? We've only been gone an hour.'

'You're right,' Clodagh agreed. 'I'm being ridiculous.'

She turned her attention back to her chowder.

'No, I can't bear it,' she burst out.'Give me the mobile.'

With a sigh Dylan handed it over.

'Hello, Ted, it's Clodagh, just checking that everything's OK.'

'We're having a blast,' Ted lied, as Ashling held her hands over Craig's and Molly's agape mouths.

So, can I have a word with them?'

'They're, um, busy. Playing. Yes, that's right, playing with Ashling.'

'Oh. Well, then, see you later.

'It's very annoying,' Clodagh said mournfully, as she snapped the phone closed. 'They drive me mad all week, I can't wait for even five minutes away from them, then I go out for the evening and I worry about them!'

'We can go home if you want,' Dylan said tightly. 'And have oven-chips and a non-stop string of demands.'

'When you put it like that... Sorry, Dylan. I am actually having a nice time. A very nice time.'

Not quite the same could be said of Ashling and Ted. It had taken ages for Craig and Molly to stop crying after their parents had left. They'd eventually quietened down but only after they'd commandeered the telly to watch The Little Mermaid The Little Mermaid and Ted had to forgo watching and Ted had to forgo watching Stars in Their Eyes Stars in Their Eyes.

'And it's celebrity night,' he complained bitterly.

To pass the time Ted went through Dylan's enormous record and CD collection with jealous admiration, exclaiming when he found an impressively rare one. 'Look at that. Bob Marley's Catch a Fire in its original sleeve Catch a Fire in its original sleeve. How'd he manage that, the lucky bastard?'

Ashling found it hard to care. Men and their music collections. Phelim used to be the exact same.

'Fuck's sake!' Ted burst out. 'Burning Spear's first two albums on Studio One! I thought you could only get them in Jamaica.'

'Dylan and Clodagh went to Jamaica on the honeymoon,' Ashling deadpanned.

'Lucky for some.' He managed to inject a world of longing into those three words. '... The complete Billie Holiday on Verve,' Ted sounded like he might puke. 'Where'd he get that? I've been looking for years years for it!... Tool,' he added. for it!... Tool,' he added.

'Aha!' He pounced gleefully on something. 'This is a right skeleton in the cupboard! What's Mr Cooler-than-thou doing with a Simply Red album? There goes his street-cred.'

'Sorry to disappoint you, but that's Clodagh's.'

'Clodagh likes Simply Red?' Ted's face was a picture.

'She used to, in any case.'

'"Used to" is OK.' Ted was weak with relief. He thought Clodagh was a goddess, but if she was a fan of Mick Hucknall's he might have to reconsider. Surely no goddess could have such an inexcusable lapse in taste?

As soon as The Little Mermaid The Little Mermaid ended, Craig and Molly clamoured loudly to be entertained. But when Ted tried his owl routine on them, Molly told him to go home ended, Craig and Molly clamoured loudly to be entertained. But when Ted tried his owl routine on them, Molly told him to go home now now and Craig began to cry. Ted took it hard, especially when Ashling hiding and reappearing from behind a paper bag had them in convulsions. and Craig began to cry. Ted took it hard, especially when Ashling hiding and reappearing from behind a paper bag had them in convulsions.

'Little bastards,' he muttered. 'Loads of people would give their right arm for this opportunity.'

'But they're only kids.'

Craig began pulling at Ashling, demanding 7-Up. When it didn't appear instantly, the tears started again.

'Spoilt brat.' Ted was scathing.

'No, he's not.'

'Yes, he is. If he lived in Bangladesh, he'd be working eighteen hours a day in a sweatshop, you know... Then he'd have something to cry about,' Ted added, darkly.

The evening was a very long one. Ashling and Ted had to provide a non-stop supply of laughs, stories, sweets, tickling, drinks, lorry-throwing, Barbie-football and that old favourite, Hiding Your Hand up Your Sleeve.

'Where's Molly's hand gone?' Ted asked wearily, as gleefully Molly secreted her hand up her sleeve for the millionth time. 'Oh dear,' he said flatly. 'Molly's lost her hand. Someone's stolen it.' Then as Molly triumphantly thrust her hand back into the public arena, Ted said moodily, 'Oh what a surprise! Here it is again. Where's Molly's hand gone... ?'

When bedtime came, getting them to go to bed and stay there and stay there was like trying to nail jelly to the wall. was like trying to nail jelly to the wall.

'If you don't go to sleep, the bogeyman will come and get you,' Ted threatened.

'There's no bogeyman,' Craig said confidently. 'Mummy said.'

Ted reconsidered. Surely something must scare him? 'OK, if you don't go to sleep, Mick Hucknall will come and get you.'

'What's that?'

'I'll show you.' Ted nipped downstairs, grabbed the CD and ran back up. 'That's Mick Hucknall.' Mick Hucknall.'

Ashling, downstairs savouring a moment of peace, looked up in alarm as a terrible, screaming cacophany broke out in the room above her. Seconds later Ted appeared, looking furtive and guilty.

'What's going on?' she demanded.

'Nothing.'

'I'd better go up.'

Ashling spent several fruitless minutes trying to calm Craig.

'What did you say to him?' she accused Ted, when she came back down. 'He's absolutely inconsolable.'

Dylan and Clodagh arrived home, swaddled in the kind of loving glow that makes everyone else feel excluded and lacking. They lurched into the house, Clodagh's arm around Dylan, his hand firmly on her bum (on the side that wasn't covered in blackberry jam).

As soon as Ashling and Ted had been dispatched into the night, Clodagh winked at Dylan, nodded at upstairs and said, 'Come on.' It was exactly four weeks since the last time they'd had sex, but she was so awash with drunken magnanimity that she would have thrown in a bonus session even if he hadn't been due one.

'I'll just switch off lights and lock doors,' he said.

'Hurry,' she said coquettishly, safe in the knowledge that he wouldn't.

They'd long passed the stage of luxuriously undressing each other. Clodagh was already naked under the duvet when Dylan came to bed and a swift, thirty-second swish of lycra and cotton had him stepping out of his clothes. Clodagh lay back, closed her eyes and submitted to being kissed for a few minutes; then, as always, Dylan moved to her nipples. When he finished at that, there was a silent, unacknowledged struggle. Because this was the point at which Dylan usually liked to shimmy down her body to administer cunnilingus, but Clodagh couldn't bear it. It was so boring and simply added several wasted minutes to the whole procedure. Tonight she won, managing to head him off at the pass. She proceeded directly to fellatio, treating him to between four and five minutes of it, and its cessation was his cue to climb aboard. For a special treat birthdays and anniversaries Clodagh would go on top. But tonight wasn't the deluxe version, just the standard missionary one. She clasped Dylan to her in a smooth ballet of comfortable familiarity. Once she was into it, it wasn't so bad, she decided. It was the anticipation that distressed her so. As always, Dylan waited for her to pretend to come before gathering pace, pumping away as though a stopwatch was being held over him. It's about time we did this room up again about time we did this room up again, Clodagh thought, as he machined back and forth in a panting, whimpering blur. The carpet could probably stay, but Yd really like to paint the walls The carpet could probably stay, but Yd really like to paint the walls.

'Oh God,' Dylan begged, shoving his hands under her buttocks and banging himself into her at ever-faster speed. 'Oh God, oh God.'

Automatically, Clodagh obliged with an absent-minded moan. That should hurry things along. Purple and cream walls, perhaps Purple and cream walls, perhaps. Then Dylan was spasming in ecstasy and collapsing with a groan. The only break from the norm was that they weren't interrupted by either of their children, clamouring to join in.

Fifteen minutes from start to finish and all over for another month. Clodagh sighed with contentment. Thank God he wasn't one of those men who insisted on pleasuring you all night long. She'd have had to kill herself long ago if that had been the case.

Ted and Ashling whizzed through the darkened streets, en route en route to the Cigar Room, for 'just the ten'. When they dismounted the bike, Ted slapped his palm on his forehead in a gesture that looked vaguely rehearsed. to the Cigar Room, for 'just the ten'. When they dismounted the bike, Ted slapped his palm on his forehead in a gesture that looked vaguely rehearsed.

'Well, feck it,' he exclaimed, with ire that, oddly, lacked conviction. 'I'm after leaving my jacket at Clodagh's. I'll have to call around during the week to collect it.'

In a house in a bleak, sea-facing corner of Ringsend, Jack and Mai were just about wrapping up their reunion ride. Earlier, Mai had been stunned by Jack arriving at her flat and apologizing for not having greeted her at the office yesterday with enough warmth for her liking. Then he'd whisked her to his house, where he fed her, poured good wine into her, and took her to bed.

He was so unexpectedly sweet that while they were making love, she didn't as she often did pretend to look at her watch. A couple of times recently she'd even used the remote control to switch on the telly while they were on the job. It had driven him wild. 'It's a bit more interesting than what you're doing to me,' had been her explanation, although it wasn't true. But it kept him insecure and kept her in control.

Hard work, mind.

They lay in a post-coital glow. 'You're wonderful,' he said out of nowhere.

'Am I?' She sat up on her elbow and shot him a provocative, malicious smile. 'Except I've crap taste in men, right?' She braced herself for a spiky come-back from Jack, but he just busied himself winding his fingers in her long hair. 'Are you OK?' she asked, high with surprise.

'Couldn't be better. Why?'

'Nothing.'